MUSICAL MONDAY: Bangaranga (DARA)

Here it is: the winner of the weekend's 70th annual Eurovision Song Contest.

In the "home jury", both Rachel and I gave this one our top scores and so were delighted - and rather surprised - that the bouncy Bangaranga actually won the contest.

Our scoresheets for the evening - Rachel even made notes!

Sadly, the UK's Look Mum No Computer (which we'd voted into second place) ended up at the bottom of the 25 acts participating in the grand final, with just a single point.

In comparison, DARA scored 516 points - the biggest margin over second place in the history of Eurovision.

See below for the final tally, which includes both the international juries' and the public votes.

HEALTH UPDATE: If It's Not One Thing, It's Another

Image by Alfred Derks from Pixabay

The first - and best - thing that happened this week was rescheduling my steroid injections. This had been the primary motivator of my drastic diet changes and it paid off.

I rang the hospital, spoke to a lovely woman in the Pain Clinic, and told her my new blood sugar count.

She offered me the choice of going on a waiting list for the doctor I had seen previously or an early morning appointment at the start of next month with a different doctor.

What the phrase Pain Clinic always
conjures up in my twisted mind

I really wanted to stay with the doctor I knew (fear of change and all that), but I also wanted to get this matter resolved ASAP.

So, quite heroically I thought, I opted for the Pain Clinic appointment in June.

Hopefully, these shots into my lumbar facet joints will ease the extreme pain in my back so I can do more vigorous exercises to help keep the discomfort at bay for the long-term.

I should also point out that I made the call to the hospital using my mobile phone - like a real 21st Century person.

The night before I'd woken at about 3am in a panic about not having a landline for the foreseeable future and used my phone to log into my mobile account (which I'd never actually looked at before)... and found I had "free minutes" every month.

Yes, I knew about these mythical things, but always thought there was a catch. There isn't. A minute is a minute.

That's put me at ease about both my appointment at the hospital and using my phone in lieu of the landline.

However, that state of contentment didn't last too long as I was getting texts from the NHS eye clinic about my test the other week - but I couldn't open them, either directly on my phone or through the NHS app.

Then I got a severe-sounding message that said I needed to go for a new test at a different hospital... and I overreacted. To put it mildly.

Picture from Pixabay

Fearing the worst (i.e. I was going blind), I catastrophised straight from calm to Def Con Freak Out.

I called Rachel and she managed to talk me back down, then went off to get in touch with the hospital I was being directed to. 

[The extra embarrassing aspect of this was that I talking to Rachel via a video link and so her entire office could see - and hear - my rather lengthy emotional breakdown.]

It turns out the pictures of the interior of my eye that had been taken the other day weren't good enough and therefore I was being sent to a hospital unit with better equipment. 

Rachel was also told that the "portal" the eye service used to communicate with patients wasn't the same as the general NHS one that I was used to using, and could be a bit "temperamental".

As Rachel calmly explained all this to me, I could feel my mental dials turning down to a normal level again. 

I, honestly, don't know what I would do without my wonderful wife.

Annoyingly, my INR was up again (even higher than last week) which means the weekly check-ups will continue for a while.

And I'm concerned that, if it doesn't sink back down into my target range (through subtle changes in the amount of daily medication I take for it), that might also screw up my spinal injections!

I was specifically asked about INR when I rescheduled my jabs - and told I might need to be tested before the procedure could go ahead.

The fun never ends.

The Big Bang Spin-Off We Didn't Know We Needed

Stuart Fails to Save The Universe looks wild, and totally not what fans of the largely-grounded Big Bang Theory were expecting. Even Rachel's looking forward to this one.

THROWBACK THURSDAY: Faking Family History

The brave solider poses with his gorgeous wife before heading off to war

Short of the amazing props made by people like the HP Lovecraft Historical Society and the contributors to the fabulous Propnomicon blog, old photographs are among the best tools to add an air of verisimilitude to role-playing games set sometime during the last century or so.

However, not everyone has a family history full of explorers, gunfighters and soldiers and this is where those rare photographic studios that offer 'olde time' pictures come in handy.

With a range of period props and costumes, you can create a slice of history - in sepia - that your family never knew it had... and then use the pictures as the basis for role-playing characters!

Timmy The Flea

Whenever I come across one of these studios, I like to take the opportunity to get dressed up and pose for an old time picture. Not only do these make for interesting 'conversation' pieces when displayed around the home (I'm beginning to sound like an advert!), but they are unique role-playing props.

It's not cheap (the last one Rachel and I had done cost £32 at the National History Museum of Wales around 20 years ago), but then again you don't find these specialist studios in every High Street or on street corners.

We're not talking about those online apps where your head gets badly Photoshopped into a fake film poster; this is the full works, as you can see from my examples above, and each one conjures up a string of stories and possible scenarios.

And I know these days you can do this via AI, but that can be very hit and miss - as well as being ethically dubious.

There used to be a photographic studio in the Trocadero Centre in London, which was stocked with Wild West and gangster costumes (Pete has a picture of him and some friends as 1920's Chicago gangsters in his stairwell), but that closed many years ago.

If you happen to stumble upon one of these places, and are looking for that special prop for your role-playing game, an 'old time' picture is a worthy investment of cash (obviously it doubles as an actual souvenir as well!)... and who doesn't like dressing up every now and again?

Timmy The Flea's Hole-In-The-Head gang portrait

Figuring Out My Mummy Issues

It's a definite truism - and a meme - that as you grow older people are less inclined to ask you your favourite dinosaur (it's a diplodocus, by the way) but I've realised the same is true for your favourite monster. Specifically the original Universal Monsters.

I've been thinking about this a lot recently. Not sure exactly why. 

I'm pretty certain my friend, the author Charles R Rutledge would say Dracula, but I really had to put my thinking head on before it struck me which monster I'm most fascinated by.

The Mummy.

Although my favourite old Universal monster movie is, of course, the marvellous Bride of Frankenstein, the actual Bride is only really on-screen for around five minutes.

However, The Mummy is ubiquitous in films, comics, games etc. 

I even did a whole series of Show Me The Mummy movie reviews... and am planning a second such collection of write-ups in due course.

The Mummy was also a key antagonist in both issues of my DIY comic, Monster Mag, that I created as a youngling. For instance, in the first issue it easily defeated the Hulk! You can find issue one here and issue two here. 

From the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons
Monster Manual, pg 72

And I've always been a fan of mummies as monsters in the old school Dungeons & Dragons games of my youth (really must bring them back at some point!).

There were some grand pyramid-themed dungeons in old issues of the Judges Guild magazines around at the time.

But all this has culminated in Rachel buying me a most incredible present the other day: the Ultimate Mummy action figure of Boris Karloff's portrayal in the the original 1932 film.

After thanking her profusely, I excitedly told her I now had an excuse to pick up the Ardath Bey figure and the sarcophagus accessory pack!

There is a rule (well, more of a guideline) in this house that my action figures are "tolerated" as long as they are not kept in their boxes, but put out on display.

However, at the moment, I'm so in awe of my Mummy figure that I can't bring myself to open it quite yet.

I also think I might have a new idea for a theme for my protracted castle tower project as well (inspired by the Egyptian Collection at Lord Carnarvon's Highclere Castle [aka Downtown Abbey])! 

SO MANY DOGS!!!

I love Newfies - I just wish they didn't drool quite so much! 🤣

A cold wind blew us to Hever Castle yesterday for the return of Castle Canines (formerly Paws At The Castle).

This was the first time the venue had hosted its dog show in over five years (apparently there's a new management team in charge of the site) and it was clearly much in demand as, it appeared, probably more than 50 percent of attendees had brought their own dogs along with them.

In fact, Rachel and I were quite taken aback (in a good way) by the sheer number of dogs wandering the grounds. Neither of us had ever seen so many pooches in one place... and yet Alice still managed to garner plenty of attention.

Our first stop was the 'meet and greet' with the giant Newfoundlands, who we would later see demonstrating their life-saving skills in the freezing cold lake.

Newfy water rescue demonstration

Then it was a general meander through the castle grounds, oohing and aahing at cuteness on display.

During our stay we spotted a former (human) participant in Channel Four's amazing series, The Dog House, as well as - no, honestly - an elderly duck that had appeared in the Disney live-action version of Beauty and The Beast. It was that kind of wonderful, very British, very random event.

The huskies were very chilled

The weather wasn't a friend to the poor people serving puppy ice creams and desserts

However, mid-afternoon, the heavens opened signalling a mass exodus from Castle Canines. We'd managed three hours though, with a lot of walking around and standing, and I'm pretty sure we'd seen everything we wanted to.

Hopefully next year the weather will be better for the dog show and it, once again, becomes a regular fixture of the castle's calendar of events.

It was also great to have simply gotten back to Hever Castle, having missed all of last year's events because of my stupid back problems.

A family portrait

HEALTH UPDATE: Highs, Lows, and Everything In Between

Picture by Ahmet Bozkus

There are some days when I really miss the typewriters and corded telephones of my formative years.

Somehow, I have found myself in a dispute with TalkTalk - our phone and Internet providers - after they accidentally cut off our landline.

This is the culmination of almost a year's worth of exchanges with them about changes they were talking about making to our line.

I was reassured numerous times that I wouldn't have to do anything, our line wouldn't be cut off and, anyway, they couldn't do it without our express permission.

Then, the other day, they cut us off.

A TalkTalk-appointed engineer came out, checked our set-up, and proclaimed that the fault was not at our end.

However, when I went back to TalkTalk the random person I ended up in a conversation with contradicted everything I'd previously been told - including by the engineer - and said we did have to do some rejigging of the set-up ourselves.

The conversation did not go well.

But, ultimately, this is very first world problems and small potatoes compared to the real hardships that several of my friends are currently going through.

So, after the initial fury and moaning to Rachel, I'm kinda letting it slide for the moment. 

Although it is frustrating not being able to call people on the landline (yes, I know that's very 20th Century, but I'm an old geezer and, even now, don't really understand a lot about mobile phones).

In more positive news, when it came to receiving the first of my recent medical test results this week, even the nurse was impressed.

This was for my blood sugars. My target score is 48 (I think this is HbA1c aka glycated haemoglobin) and my previous result had been a shocking 60 (my worst ever, according to a previous nurse).

However, after three months of dieting I've brought my score down to 49.

Now, I've just got to keep going.

Unfortunately, a few days later I went for my regular INR (blood thickness) test and after months of stability, my score was now above my target range... meaning I'm back to weekly tests for a while.

The only reason the nurse and I could come up with for this change was, in fact, the impact of my new diet! 

Swings and roundabouts, eh?

A Relaxing Afternoon Spent With Rescued Farm Animals

Alice and I pose by a Second World War era tractor at the farm

The weather was warm if overcast, so Rachel, Alice and I jumped in the car and headed out to the delightful Little Fant Farm (just outside Maidstone) on Bank Holiday Monday (yesterday).

Admission - and parking - was free, which was a nice touch, but we suspected the farm made up for that with its enormous, and very popular, award-winning outdoor café/restaurant.

In an environment that was both dog- and kid-friendly, there were a number of animals to check out on the farm, ranging from pigs and horses to goats and ducks. All of them are rescues - which made this experience even more perfect.

Nigel

A meeting of great minds

The ducks

Ant and...

...Dec

We had a walk around the farm and then a short stroll down a country road to a neighbouring farm, where we had a lovely chat with that farmer's mother who was feeding two of their horses, Bob and Ted.

All in all, it was a really chilled day out, topped off with a delicious cream tea and pleasant conversation with the couple we shared a table with outside the café.

Time spent around happy animals is always very relaxing and good for the soul.

Even though it wasn't a "tree safari" per se, it was still a day out and I took a small number of evocative pictures of trees and stonework to add to my portfolio.

Bob and Ted

THROWBACK THURSDAY: #TimFest 2025

A year ago (late April, 2025) we threw a party to mark the 20th anniversary of my life-changing aortic aneurysm, or more accurately to celebrate the extra 20 years (so far) that I have had since the National Health Service (NHS) saved my life.

Here's the pictures - and text - I used to mark the occasion on the blog: 

Much to Rachel's surprise, it was actually my idea to host this event (I am, if you didn't already know, notoriously anti-social). I'd seen that 'new' Doctor Who was 20 years old this year and I realised that my brush with death had come several episodes into the regenerated show's first season.

Up until this year, I have been very nervous - almost superstitious - about even knowing we'd reached another anniversary and I never wanted to know the exact date or too many details of the circumstances (beyond the obvious facts that I had suffered a dissecting aortic aneurysm and then a stroke on the operating table).

But, this year, I finally accepted that two decades was far enough removed from the original, awful, event that maybe it was time to invite friends and family round to share a few drinks, have some nice food, and - at Rachel's suggestion - even raise a bit of money for the Aortic Dissection Awareness charity.

While Rachel - who actually organised the whole shindig, invited the guests, prepared the food, decorated the house etc - called the event "20 Years of Tim", others were calling it "Tim Day" and even "TimFest". 

I'll confess while it was immensely flattering to have all these people turn up to celebrate "me", it was also incredibly overwhelming and every so often I had to find a few calming minutes of quiet solitude with Alice and Obi (my two favouritest dogs in the whole, wide world).

Poor Alice, who is dealing with her own medical issues, seemed rather out of sorts as well, with so many people in "her space", that she didn't even engage in her usual rough and tumble with Obi (she's renowned for bullying him mercilessly, despite being a fraction of his size!).

I was quite gobsmacked by how much Acrobatic Flea (my signature character from our old games of Villains & Vigilantes) branding there was for the day - from the lovely T-shirt that Rachel's parents had made for me to the cup cakes created by the wonderful baker over the road from us.

Just before the group photograph was taken, Rachel gave a short, tearful, speech about how brilliant everyone had been in the wake of my sudden hospitalisation - from the amazing doctors and nurses of the NHS to all our friends who had pitched in to help us get through this. It even got to me, despite having already heard a dry run the night before, and a good number of other attendees. 

On the food table was a small framed poster with a QR code that people could scan, if they wished to, to make a charitable donation to Aortic Dissection Awareness.  

There was light-hearted talk about making Tim Day an annual event, which I did relay to Rachel, but I think one social event in 20 years is probably quite enough.

Top Dogs: Obi, the visitor (front), and our beloved Alice.

FAMILY PORTRAIT: Me, Rachel (holding Alice) and Rachel's parents

There were even garden games available for the young - and young-at-heart

EX-CUPCAKE! We're lucky to have a gifted cake maker live across the road from us

Excuse me, there's a Flea on my cupcake!

A mere fraction of the food and drink Rachel provided on the day

While the event was never intended as a "gift giving" day I was stunned
by the unexpected gifts I did receive.

THROWBACK THURSDAY: I Never Met David Bowie, But...

Nick and Andorian cosplayer at the premiere 'after-party'

I didn't want to get off on the wrong foot with this David Bowie-themed Throwback Thursday by suggesting I had met the great man.

The closest I ever came (via the laws of Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon) was when Nick and I, 24 year ago, blagged ourselves tickets to the gala celebrity premiere of Star Trek VI - The Undiscovered Country (probably my favourite of the original Star Trek movies). I can't remember if this was through work or through my old Trekkie friend John Carrigan.

The only celebrities there actually connected with the movie were director Nicholas Meyer and Iman  - model-turned-actress and wife of David Bowie - who played Martia the shapeshifter.

So I was in the same room as Bowie's wife, which is the next best thing to having been in the same room as him!

As is often the case when someone famous dies you discover all the fascinating facts about their life that you wish you'd known while they were alive.

For instance, thanks to the Times of Tunbridge Wells news website back in 2016, I learned of Bowie's connection to the town of my birth.

His mum came from Southborough (a 'suburb' of Tunbridge Wells that bridges the gap between that town and Tonbridge, where I now live) and she met her future husband (and David's father-to-be) at the old cinema in Tunbridge Wells.

Like the rest of the right-thinking world I've always been a fan of Bowie's music, but in recent years it took on an added poignancy, as his song Where Are We Now? was the only track I remember the radio playing as Rachel and I sat by my mum's bed in her final days.

After years of silence, he had surprised the world by announcing a new album seemingly out of the blue, and here I was hearing the first release from it (repeatedly), sitting in a night-shrouded room, swathed in grief, saying 'good bye' to my ailing mother.

When I think back to those days, and I often do, the image in my head is almost like a Nativity scene, with Rachel and I sitting in the halo of light from a bedside lamp, holding mum's hand, in an otherwise dark room, with Where Are We Now? providing the soundtrack for the vignette.

HEALTH UPDATE: Long Live Biscuit Club!

Photo by Centre for Ageing Better on Unsplash

No "tree safari" this weekend as Rachel was away for most of it, on a well-deserved spa break with some of her old university pals.

Then when she returned today she had to plunge headfirst into working on an important report for a client that she was given on Friday and needed to be done by this evening.

However, some good news on the fitness front for me. Remember I said a few weeks back that Biscuit Club had come to an end and I was looking for a replacement?

Well, I've finally managed to secure a place on a new - very similar - free, 12-week course being run by the borough council... at the same venue as previous Biscuit Club!

This kicks off at the end of the month.

Rachel and I do wonder though, as this is a local council-run course (presumably paid for out of our council tax), perhaps it won't end with free tea and biscuits! Will it even be a new Biscuit Club???

Having now established contact with the not-for-profit trust that runs these events on the council's behalf, I'm pretty sure I'm now finally set for a long-term exercise regime.

I learned that this new postural stability class is run by the same lady that already runs the council's weekly exercise classes at the Angel Centre, in Tonbridge (for those of us with mobility or fitness issues).

So once I've finished the free, three-month, course I hope to be able to easily switch to one of the paid classes at the sports centre.

"Arise, Arise, Riders of Théoden! Eggs Shall Be Eaten..."

Honestly, I wasn't looking for Easter Eggs - just admiring the well-decorated grounds

As I mentioned in my little Easter post, we spent the majority of this afternoon at an Easter Egg Hunt, held in the grounds of Saint Hill Manor, East Grinstead.

This wasn't really my usual "tree safari" (there were way too many people around, for one thing), but a chance to do something a little different.

As I stressed earlier, we weren't there for the egg hunt per se, but there were plenty of other cute animal-themed activities on offer.

We started our afternoon watching - safely at the top of the hill - the "big egg hunt", which, after a countdown, saw hundreds of kids and their parents charging down into the natural bowl behind the manor, and up the other side, hunting for the many, many tiny eggs that had been scattered around for them to find.

Ready, set,,,

GO!!!

It was basically the Ride of The Rohirrim, but chasing down chocolate eggs rather than Sauron's orcs.

There were some impressive customed characters wandering around the grounds of the stately home - including children's TV star Bluey - who, of course, we had to get some pictures with.

I think Alice must have been looking even cuter than usual as she got so much attention and made a ton of new friends.

There was a small petting zoo, but the highlight of the afternoon, for me, was the outdoor talk by Living Things, about the variety of reptiles, creepy crawlies, and mammals that had been brought along to educate the rapt audience of children, their parents, and animal-lovers such as us.

We were introduced to a number of creatures that neither Rachel nor I had even heard of before, and the presenter was great with both the excitable younger members of the audience and the animals she was carefully handling.

The snake was cool, but...

...who doesn't love a meerkat?

"NANU NANU" AND HOPPY EASTER!!!

As part of my current "get fit" kick, I was quite adamant that I didn't want chocolate for Easter, so Rachel and I exchanged non-edible gifts this morning before heading out for an Easter Egg hunt event.

I got Rachel a beautiful, tiny (and working) ceiling lamp for her latest dolls house project, while she got me a box set of Mork & Mindy DVDs (it has an egg on the cover!) and a miniature table tennis set.

Rachel confessed that when the ping pong set was ordered, she hadn't realised quite how small it was!

Knowing my "no chocolate or sweets" request - and my poor willpower when it comes to such treats - Rachel's parents got us some delightful Easter socks instead, which we wore today on our exhausting adventure.

I'll tell you more about that - and share of pictures of the 'celebrities' we met - later on, when we're not so tired out. 

Please be aware that Rachel, Alice, and I were not participating in the egg hunt, just the other fun activities that were going on around it.

Eggs-ellent Easter Socks